International Football History and Statistics

On this day in football history

• 1899 Iceland's oldest football club K R Reykjavik ( Knattspyrnufelag Reykjavikur - Football Club of Reykjavik)is founded. The club has won its domestic championship 22 times including the first ever in 1912.
• 1929 Ashington lost 4-7 at home to Doncaster Rovers in Division Three North with Tommy Keetley scoring six of the visitor's goals. He was one of five brothers, all of whom played in the Football League, and a prolific goalscorer getting 277 between 1919 and 1933. Besides Rovers he also played for Bradford and Notts County.
• 1935 Arthur Turner, Doncaster Rovers outside-left, scored five goals in his side's 7-1 win over New Brighton. He began with Hull City in 1931 and also played for Walsall before joining Doncaster in 1934. He won a Third Division North medal with them in 1935 and joined Cardiff City two years later. When he left the League in 1938 he had scored 84 goals in 195 matches. His son Gordon played for Luton Town between 1949 and 1964 and scored 265 goals for them; 243 in 405 League appearances.
• 1939 Jimmy Mullen made his First Division debut for Wolverhampton Wanderers at the age of 16 years and 2 months. He played at outside-right that day and held the same position for the next 20 years. He played in eight League matches before the War but was omitted from the team beaten 4-1 by Portsmouth in the 1939 FA Cup Final. He appeared for England twice during the War and against Belgium in the "Victory" international during the 1945-46 season. He gained his first full cap against Scotland in 1947 and his twelfth and last in 1954. With Wolves he won a FA Cup medal in 1949 and three League Championship medals in 1954, 1958 and 1959. He left Molineux in the summer of 1959 having made 445 League appearances and scored exactly 100 goals. He scored a further 13 goals in cup ties and 6 for England.
• 1955 Arsenal transferred outside-right Arthur Milton to Bristol City. Better remembered as a Gloucestershire and England opening bat he nonetheless had a short but remarkable career in first class football. He joined the Gunners in 1946 and made his league debut in 1951. After only a dozen matches he played for England against Austria at Wembley. In the 1952-53 season he appeared in sufficient matches to win a League Championship medal. At the time of his move to Ashton Gate City were hopeful of winning promotion to the Second Division and they duly achieved this with Milton playing in just enough matches (14) to qualify for a medal. He then retired from senior football to concentrate on cricket. In four years he played just 89 matches and scored 21 goals yet he won more in that short time than many players with far longer careers.
• 1957 The first African Nations Cup Final ends in a 4-0 win for Egypt over Ethiopia in Sudan. Mohamed Diab El-Attar (Ad-Diba)scores all four goals.
• 1957 In the Fifth Round of the FA Cup Bournemouth and Boscombe beat Tottenham Hotspur, then lying second in the First Division, by 3-1. In the previous four rounds they had an aggregate score of 12-0 having beaten Burton Albion 8-0, Swindon Town 1-0 away, Accrington Stanley 2-0 and Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0 at Molineux. In the following round they lost 1-2 to Manchester United after scoring first in front of a record 28,799 at Dean Court.
• 1963 Bolton Wanderers play thier first match since December 8th as England was crippled by the "big freeze".
• 1970 Sudan win the African Nations Cup Final 1-0 over Ghana.
• 2000 In an Italian Cup match between Lazio and Venezia only 381 spectators turn out. It is thought to be the lowest crowd ever for a match between two Serie A teams.